印度版微信的顛覆性 Hike app aims to disrupt data providers
Indian chat app Hike faces an uphill battle to catch up with WhatsApp, the world’s most popular messaging service owned by social network Facebook. But founder Kavin Bharti Mittal says one new feature is proving popular with users across the developing world.
印度聊天應用Hike要趕上社交媒體Facebook旗下、全球人氣最高的信息服務WhatsApp，還得經歷一番艱苦戰鬥，但其創始人凱文•巴蒂•米塔爾(Kavin Bharti Mittal，上圖)表示，事實證明，一個新功能正受到發展中國家用戶的歡迎。
“It came out of an insight that data [in India] is expensive,” he says of Hike Direct, a service added to the group’s main app in October that lets users swap files such as music and video at high speeds without having to be online.
他在談到Hike Direct時表示：“它源於（印度）數據通信很貴這個認識。”Hike Direct是該集團去年10月爲其主要應用新增的一個服務，讓用戶在不用上網的情況下高速交換音樂和視頻等文檔。
India has about 400m internet users, most of whom use the internet via mobile devices. Roughly 250m now own smartphones but even those with expensive devices often save money by rationing data use or turning connections off.
印度大約有4億互聯網用戶，其中大多數通過移動設備使用互聯網。約2.5億人現在有智能手機，但即便是那些有昂貴設備的人也往往爲了省錢而定量使用數據或者斷開網絡連接。
Perhaps as many as a third of smartphone users have no data connection at all, according to IT analysts Convergence Catalyst. They rely instead on occasional WiFi or on “side loading” files to their phone using memory cards.
信息技術分析機構Convergence Catalyst表示，或許高達三分之一的智能手機用戶完全沒有數據連接。他們依賴偶爾的WiFi無線連接或者使用存儲卡將文檔“側載”至手機。
Mr Mittal argues Hike Direct is ideal for such users. It works like a faster, more intuitive version of Bluetooth, using an underlying technology called WiFi Direct that is built into most smartphones. The feature allows any two Hike users to pair their phones and swap files if they are near each other.
米塔爾辯稱，Hike Direct非常適合此類用戶。它就像是一個速度更快、更直觀的藍牙版本，使用內置於多數智能手機的一種名爲WiFi Direct的底層技術。這種功能允許任何兩個Hike用戶在彼此靠近時配對手機並交換文檔。
“Growth for Hike Direct is tremendous,” Mr Mittal says, although he will not reveal actual numbers, saying only that users have so far swapped about 10m files.
米塔爾表示：“Hike Direct的增長是巨大的。”不過他沒有透露實際數目，只是說用戶迄今交換了大約1000萬份文檔。
More generally, about 100m use Hike’s main messenger globally, far behind the roughly 900m claimed by WhatsApp. But Hike enjoys a comfortable second place in India, and says it is growing rapidly elsewhere.
整體而言，全球大約有1億人使用Hike的主要信息服務，遠遠落後於WhatsApp宣稱的近9億用戶。但Hike在印度的用戶數量輕鬆地排名第二，該公司表示其他地方的用戶數量正在迅速增長。
Mr Mittal’s father is tycoon Sunil Bharti Mittal, founder of Bharti Airtel, India’s leading telecoms group by market share. Hike is a joint venture between Bharti and SoftBank, a Japanese telecoms group that has invested heavily in Indian start-ups.
米塔爾的父親是電信大亨、巴蒂電信(Bharti Airtel)的創始人蘇尼爾•巴帝•米塔爾(Sunil Bharti Mittal)。按市場份額計算，巴蒂電信是印度領先的電信集團。Hike是巴蒂電信和大舉投資於印度初創企業的日本電信集團軟銀(SoftBank)成立的合資企業。
Some industry figures view the technology underpinning Hike Direct as a potentially disruptive force — especially if Hike and its rivals allow many users to pair phones, rather than just two at a time, so effectively creating an impromptu local sharing network.
一些業內人士將支持Hike Direct的技術視爲潛在的顛覆性力量，尤其是如果Hike及其競爭對手讓多名（而不僅限於一次兩名）用戶配對手機的話，那將實際上創建一個臨時的本地共享網絡。
“That is why this could be a brilliant concept, and one uniquely suited for India,” says Roy de Souza, chief executive of Zedo, an India-based digital advertising business. He says that in India even rich people turn off their data connections. “What they really want is a kind of WhatsApp that doesn’t cost them data. This could be it.”
印度數字廣告企業Zedo的首席執行官羅伊•德索薩(Roy de Souza)表示：“那就是爲什麼這可能是一個絕佳的概念，一個特別適用於印度的概念。”他說，在印度，即便是富人也會斷開他們的數據連接。“他們真正想要的是一種不用耗費他們數據流量的WhatsApp，Hike Direct可能就是這麼個服務。”
Services like this could be especially popular on university campuses, Mr de Souza says, or in small office buildings. But Mr Mittal has bigger ideas. “Eventually, you could think of this connecting together a whole rural village that isn’t online,” he says.
德索薩表示，像這樣的服務可能在大學校園或者小型寫字樓尤爲受歡迎。但米塔爾有更爲宏大的創意。他說：“最終而言，你可能想讓它將沒有聯網的整個村子聯在一起。”
Making this happen will not be easy. So far, the broader network concept is untested. Any company developing the technology could face legal difficulties, given its probable use as a way of sharing pirated music and videos. Setting up a network would also drain the batteries of connected phones, a deterrent factor.
實現這一想法並不容易。建立更大範圍網絡的概念迄今沒有經過測試。鑑於這種技術很可能被用於共享盜版音樂和視頻，任何開發這種技術的公司可能面臨法律上的困難。建立網絡也將讓連接起來的手機更快耗盡電量，這是一個讓人望而卻步的因素。
It would help if other services beyond Hike adopted it, too, says Jayanth Kolla, analyst at Convergence Catalyst. “As a feature, so far it is a useful addition to Hike, but it isn’t disruptive yet,” he says.
Convergence Catalyst的分析師賈揚特•科拉(Jayanth Kolla)表示，如果Hike以外的其他服務也採用這種技術，那將會有所幫助。“作爲一個功能，迄今這是對Hike的有用補充，但它還不具有顛覆性，”他表示。
“But I would expect other chat apps like WeChat in China and Line [based in Japan] to add something like this soon, and then it could really take off.”
“但我預計中國的微信(WeChat)和日本的Line等其他聊天APP將會很快增添類似功能，隨後它就可能真的起飛。”
